


Equidistant

by lady_peony



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Canon Character - Freeform, Domestic AU character, M/M, horrible exorcists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The resemblance is fascinatingly close, he thinks. Even down to the charm over his eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equidistant

Matoba wakes to an unfamiliar room.

And a face. Human. 

He thinks it is. He hopes.

It’s an all-too-familiar face. Dressed in clothes more casual than what he would wear outside of a yokai hunt.

A nightmare would be the next conclusion. Or a yokai.

No. He shakes his head slightly. There had been a yokai. A hunt, a hidden cave and–

“What are you?” The voice even sounds the same, calm and controlled, the impatience beneath it reined in to low embers.

The resemblance is fascinatingly close, he thinks. Even down to the charm over his eye. 

Then, a familiar sharpness. The digging bite of an arrow tip under his throat, the arrow itself held in a steady grip. Matoba would try to move, but he recognizes the pull of paper bindings around his wrists.

Only those of the Matoba clan knew of those particular markings.

The bindings he recognizes. The expression of the uncovered eye, glinting bright–that is new.

There is anger yes. And beneath that. Beneath that–fear?

Matoba slows his breathing when the arrow presses harder on skin.

“What sort of yokai are you?” the other voice wearing his face says, grim and no longer as controlled. “And where is Shuuichi-san?”

  


*

  
The bindings are removed eventually. As is the arrow from his neck.

There is even tea. Matoba watches the other him pour, the movement absurdly graceful, considering the outfit.

If it is an imitation of him, it would make sense for it to keep the poise of a clan heir.

There is a cobbled explanation eventually, as the tea darkens in their cups. The other him–the other Matoba Seiji–owns the house. There are exorcists, yes. Yokai, as well.

Matoba asks a few testing questions, watches the other him eye him over the cup, expression bland and obviously guarded.

Matoba can’t leave yet. Not when he doesn’t know where (when?) he is.

This may not be his world. There are still many things he can learn here.

“What is he like,” he says, “your Natori?”

He’s aware of the last two words curdling strange, sour in his mouth, even after he has released them.

He watches the other Matoba drop the bland smile and look away into a corner of the room, lips curling up in tiny degrees. 

He presses his own palms a little closer against his cup, ignoring the uncomfortable heat.

 _Ask Natori. He’s your friend–_

If this is not his world, he will take what he can from it.

All knowledge can be used, after all.

  


*

  
Matoba doesn’t discover any weaknesses.

Any new ones, anyways.

“He enjoys sweets, but dislikes sesame filling.”

“Many mornings, he drinks coffee in my mug and neglects to do the washing.”

“A skilled exorcist, Shuuichi-san may be, but it is a rare assignment when he does not lose a hat.”

  


*

  
“While you are here, keeping house,” Matoba says, not caring enough to hide the scorn in his voice, “who is watching the clan?”

The other him lets his hands drop from the table, slips them into the pocket of his sweater, his gaze fixed on the smoke drifting out of the teapot beside him. Matoba’s own eye follows that glance to the teapot, slide over the fine crack on its side, the mismatched gray lid against red clay.

“No one ever told me I couldn’t choose both,” Matoba hears, the words piercing in the room.

Beneath the table, his hands twist in the sleeves of his yukata, the cloth somehow heavy and grounding under his nails.

  


*

  
“ _You love him_ ,” Matoba says. It comes out like an accusation.

“Is that so?” A soft laugh. “After the time we met…and all the times he has stayed, when it may have been wiser to leave…”

The other you-–your counterpart taps a finger against the rim of his cup and lifts his head, his revealed eye bright, not with his earlier fury, but something entirely different.

Something more frightening.

“It would be more unusual if I did not.”

Matoba feels his fingers tighten around his cup as he lifts it to his lips and swallows. He lowers the mostly-full cup slowly onto the table, without spilling a drop.

He–the both of you–watch the surface of the tea ripple a little, then still.

If the other is himself. If he is–only if–

(it was as good as any confession)

  


*

  
Matoba wakes up. It is his room.

The soft syllables of _Shuuichi-san_ pass through his mind again, the sight of his own face unfamiliar as he says the name–

Matoba pushes aside the covers and stands.

The day is bright enough now for practice. No one else should be at the archery grounds at this hour.

**Author's Note:**

> *i love everyone in this bar after we started weeping over the idea of canon!matoba meeting a domestic au!matoba. i am still not exactly sure how this happened.
> 
> *also inspired a lot by the lovely [art](http://epiphenomenal.tumblr.com/post/120093452977) that jan drew when we were all wailing over happy!domestic!matoba. thanks a lot jan.
> 
> *i don't consider this a canon part of [the light we kindle here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2442845/chapters/5411897) but the domestic!matoba here is meant to be the matoba from that considerably happier (and sappier) universe


End file.
